ARE THE HANDS CLEAN?

In one of Jeffery Deaver’s books I found mention of Locard’s Exchange principal which states that every contact leaves a trace. In forensics it means that the perpetrator of a crime brings something to the crime scene and leaves a trace and takes back a trace of things from the crime scene..
By extension Locard’s principal applies to contact of individuals in every activity, everywhere and every time. Everything that you get or receive has been touched by hands. We do not realise how many times and how many surfaces we touch knowingly and otherwise. Our hands are constantly in motion leaving a trace where we touch and picking up traces of whatever can get transferred to our hands.

Those of us who are hygiene conscious wash our hands many times a day but those who serve us in shops, cafes, ticketing, home delivery and everywhere do not keep their hands as clean as they should. Counter staff, cashiers, waiters and food handlers visit toilets, touch all kinds of surfaces and things and sub-consciously collect traces of invisible contaminants, bacteria and viruses. Such unwashed and cleaned hands then are in contact with food, crockery, cash and parcels directly and indirectly and with you when you receive anything through those hands.

The exchange of money is a big vector for large scale transfer of traces of infectious things!. At some establishments food handlers show their hygiene awareness by using gloves but this is an eyewash if you observe carefully. They use a single pair of gloves off and on and day after day, so the gloves now become carriers of trace material! It is better to serve food with scrupulously clean hands. Cooks and kitchen helpers are not the only offenders in trace transfers to you but each and everything that you get has in the supply and delivery chain been handled in total ignorance of a hands clean policy and the majority of the population has never even heard of the Locard’s principal.

So on reading this please give a thought to” Are the hands clean?” and share this article with your friends and contacts. Are we forgetting to wash our hands after a handshake with the “ civilised “ and well dressed persons who may be unhygienic in habits and who too hasn’t heard of Locard or a hands clean necessity. A person’s hands go to every place conceivable and always carry trace contaminants that they transfer time and again to all things and people they touch. We can do very little about the hygiene of other people’s hands and must trust our immune system to counter whatever gets ingested into our systems. By being conscious of our hands being clean we can cut down risk of infection and cross contamination .